Sky is Falling
by jinjinbun
Summary: Toph had no illusions: born blind, she lived a blind life, and fully expected to die without once opening her eyes to drink in the beauty of the world around her. Chapter 3: Three little words that managed to change everything. *Taang*
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ or any other copyrighted property that may appear in this work of fiction. Lyrics in this chapter are from "_Sky is Falling_" by Lifehouse.

**Sky is Falling**

_I watch as the daylight crawls  
__past the shadows hanging on the walls  
__it's been a long time since I felt the stain  
__of yesterday getting in my way_

_I'm alive but tell me am I free  
__I've got eyes but tell me can I see  
__the sky is falling and no one knows  
__we shouldn't be hard to believe  
__shouldn't be this difficult to breathe  
__the sky is falling and no one knows…_

* * *

The first time it happened Toph was convinced she was dreaming.

When it began there was only the slightest of flickers in the otherwise consistent nothingness of her perception—flickers of something, where that something should not exist. Toph had no illusions about her (_lack of_) sight: she'd been born blind, lived a blind life, and fully expected to die without once opening her eyes to drink in the oft-lauded beauty of the world she resided in.

So when she felt the prickling sensation in her eyes, she ignored it. After the war was over and they all went their separate ways—Aang and Katara, Sokka and Suki, Zuko and Mai—Toph had taken to wandering the edges of the deserts, earthbending great big statues of the Gaang and people they had met on their journeys from grainy silicon and weathered bits of mica. It was her way of challenging her abilities these days, as well as her silent tribute to the things they had accomplished as a group. Most likely it was sand or dust that bothered her now, scritch-scratching at the soft corneas and embedding in the damp edges and corners.

She changed her mind after a week passed and the itching _refused to go away_. No matter how much she rubbed at them, splashed her eyes with clean water or those antiseptic eye-drops a street apothecary sold her (for a sizeable sum), nothing helped. These days her eyes constantly felt dry and raw, like heated rice wine poured sizzling over a blackened slab of steak.

"It's kinda funny, the way you're glaring at that vase like you're going to set it on fire," Sokka commented laughingly as Toph sat on the kitchen table in his house, swinging her feet and impatiently fidgeting as Katara pulled down her eyelids to examine the irritated flesh underneath. "Too bad you can't see it. It's… attractive, in a weird aesthetic sort of way."

"_Hush_, Sokka, you're disturbing my patient," Katara pointed out absently, bending a small amount of water and directing it to Toph's eyes, bathing them in soothing coolness. "This is the last of the water I was given from the Spirit Oasis," she remarked as she sent pulsing waves of healing through the liquid. "It's been years; I'd almost forgotten I still had some left. I hope it works."

"I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't. Nothing _else_ has worked so far," Toph snorted dismissively, and as Katara finished up she opened her eyes to see…

Nothing—just as one might expect. The itching was gone, though, and that was a relief.

_**Wait**_. She caught her breath, as one of the almost nonexistent flickers suddenly widened, gaping open all cracked and blurry-edged over her right iris. At once, it let in a mind-numbingly white brightness she had never known until that moment, one that faded just as abruptly as it entered.

But during that one fleeting moment of illumination, Toph _saw_.

* * *

_A tall darkly-tanned boy reclined in a wooden chair, which stood beside a cloth-covered table. That table bore a bouquet of sweet-smelling flowers, in a misshapen earthen jar that was thickly glazed a deep, rich…_ color. _But _what_ color…?_

* * *

_**Green**_, her mind supplied. Sokka and Suki lived on Kyoshi Island—most things were either green or blue here. Somehow she instinctively knew it could not be blue, not when Katara stood in front of her with furrowed brow and anxious look ("_eyes that sparkle like the very bluest of sapphires_," Aang once sighed in their praise), peering into her dilating pupils.

And for several speechless seconds, she couldn't believe it was anything other than a dream. When it finally sank in, she laughed in pure euphoric ecstasy and extended her arms, crying out: "Katara, Sokka! I'm healed! I'm _healed_, I can _see_—!"

"What?"

"Just now, I saw you guys! I saw you, and that funny thing you call a vase…" Her words halted, and petered off in confusion. Toph knew the sound and scent of incredulity by heart—lessons garnered from the people who doubted her abilities as a true Earthbending Master—and just now as she announced her triumph both sound and smell surrounded her in a suffocating cloud of disbelief.

Her only proof, her _sight_, was gone as quickly as it had appeared… swallowed up by the nothingness of her blindness.

Finally Sokka chuckled, and ruffled her hair as one would pet a precocious tamed animal that has just performed a clever trick. "Pfft. _Dang_, Toph… you and your jokes. You almost _had_ me with that one!"

"It wasn't a _joke_," she muttered tightly after he and Katara left to find Aang in the town. She felt strangely overcome with fierce, unreasoning anger, and consumed with a pathetic yearning emptiness that stretched inside her and begged to be filled. She wanted to scratch and scream and destroy things, before this new terrible feeling ripped her shaking frame apart from the inside.

No one else believed her either, not even Katara. The Waterbender had simply laughed wistfully, saying that it had taken countless bathings to heal Aang's wound, and no doubt it would take thousands more to cure a blindness incurred at her birth. "You were probably just imagining it," she concluded with great gentleness, wiping away the tears that stubbornly seeped from under Toph's closed lids.

Aang, the innocent simple-minded dork, was just confused. "Why _are_ you so upset, Toph? You never cared much about being blind before." He brushed back her bangs a little, his thumb grazing her cheek and drifting along the edge of her lower lid. Tense and frustrated, it was a few seconds before she noticed… but when she did, the still-petite Earthbender stiffened in harsh rejection.

"I am NOT upset, and I really DON'T care," she bit off, finding the lies were easiest uttered when she was distracted… like this. It seemed to Toph that the light roughness of the whorls scoured her skin like a sandpaper file and shaved off layers like sediment, digging closer to the rapidly accelerating pumping of blood through the underlying capillaries. It flushed her skin with embarrassing heat, filling her mind with dangerous thoughts she was only too willing to deny.

_**Twinkles and Sugar Queen. Twinkletoes and Sweetness**_**.** Toph chanted it over and over in her head, willing herself to remember how Aang proudly referred to Katara as his '_Forever Girl_' and how his heartbeat still quickened like a teen's when she kissed him. It should've been against all laws of Nature, but somehow Aang's love remained as pure and unblemished as it had been ten years ago, when he first woke from a hundred-year-long nap and looked into the eyes of an angel.

He wouldn't understand. None of them did, so why would _he_ be any different?

………

_You leave me hanging on_

_only to catch my breath_

_I've got you and I've got nothing left_

_don't leave me all alone down here_

_with myself and all of my fear_

………

The sight came back when she slept, and figured prominently in her dreams.

Actually, calling them '_dreams'_ was exceedingly generous, for it was just _one_ dream—one long nightmarish dream that unfolded its horrors bit by bit with every passing night, so that Toph sweated and fretfully tossed and turned, weeping sometimes when it got really bad. Nothing Katara prescribed did any good, and none of Sokka's well-intentioned counseling sessions seemed to have any effect either.

Finally, Aang made the inevitable offer: to sleep with her.

"_**WHAT?!**_"

"Your dreams are getting _worse_, Toph," the Airbender argued, perched on the sill of her bedroom window as his former Earthbending Master slammed through her room like a miniature earthquake, her boundless energy pent up and shackled by her Healer's orders. "It's just a thought, _but_… Maybe if you had a friend to see you through the night, it would help you—" _and the rest of us_— "find some peace."

Katara and Sokka sat at the table in the room's center, looking somewhat uneasy as Toph growled imprecations under her breath, pacing back and forth like a caged pygmy-panther. Aang studied her—pale, withdrawn, and yet unequivocally uncompromising. Her hauntingly murky eyes loomed large in her slightly pinched face: glowing faintly milky green and surrounded by dark circles of bruised, papery-looking skin.

Despite being less than a shadow of her former self, Toph Bei Fong was still incredibly, amazingly, and most stunningly _beautiful_.

It'd had only been a few years ago that he first recognized the thought for what it was, and when he did the realization had very nearly torn Aang in two. Even now it wasn't so much guilt as guilty desire, a peculiar yearning that sapped most of his energy in denying it to himself. They were the same age— twenty-two years old (Aang never counted the extra hundred; the memory made him uncomfortable). They were adults now, no longer kids who could squabble and roughhouse and knock each other about like ninepins.

One dagger-sharp look from Toph in his direction and Aang could feel his limbs go weak as water, limp as laundry pinned to a line and drying in a dying breeze. _**I love Katara and Katara loves me**_, he thought to himself—and he reminded himself many, _many_ times as the green-clad Earthbender halted and fixed him with a scathing, weary glance.

"Twinkletoes, you may have matured some... but it's obvious your brain is still a pile of cotton candy _fluff_ and lint balls. Do you REALLY want to give up your nights' sleep to keep me company; to try and stop me from dropping further off the deep end of Crazy than already is happening?"

"You're my friend," he said simply, trying to ignore the pounding of his heart and praying against prayer that she wouldn't hear and wonder why. "Friends are supposed to be there for each other, always."

Her arms dropped to her sides, and her gaze fell to the floor like a leaden weight. "You can't _fix_ me, Aang. I'm _already_ fixed… and that's the problem."

At this point Sokka coughed, which was about as delicate a disruption as Sokka could ever manage on short notice. "Uh, _guys_, I don't mean to interrupt this heavy, _emotionally_-_charged_ conversation you have going here, but… we've got a time schedule to worry about.

"Toph, we've already agreed that one of us is going to stay with you, and unfortunately it _can't_ be Katara. Just yesterday a messenger hawk came with a message from Zuko, saying he needs her to examine Mai—she's sick or something. Suki would KILL me if she found out I spent the night with another woman... so Aang's the only one who can do it on short notice."

Aang couldn't help but wrinkle his nose in puzzlement. "Don't exaggerate, Suki wouldn't kill you. She's nice!"

"Yeah well, just _wait_ until YOU get married," Sokka muttered ruefully, rubbing his cheek and glancing at his sister with a knowing look in his eyes. "Katara's quite the possessive type too. Plus, she snores."

"I do NOT! Sokka, that's a _lie_!" Katara gasped in sisterly outrage, eyes flashing as she smacked his bare shoulder, eliciting a loud yowl of pain.

"Yeesh. See what I mean, Aang? A violent, _snoring_, drooling, _harpy_-woman… **YOWCH**! _Quit that!!_"

"Oh come and make me, Mister _Strong_ Man. Besides, _you're_ the one who snores and drools, according to Suki—"

"**LIES! ALL _LIES_!!**" screeched Sokka, as he jabbed an accusing finger at his sister. "Suki would never… _How did you know??_"

"Sokka, we're _siblings_, remember? I _should_ know… not to mention we've ALLhad the chance to hear you sleeping at some point." Katara gave her brother that smug little grin she sometime wore when she knew she'd won, curling the end of her water whip around her fingers before bending it back into her little pouch and turning to Aang. "Will _you_ be all right with this, Aang? It shouldn't take more than a week or two… a month at most, to get there and back."

"Yeah, I'll be fine," he answered, a bit startled that Katara had asked. Usually he'd thought _he_ was supposed to ask _her_ if it was okay to stay the night with another girl—maybe Katara thought that since it was Toph, nothing could come out of it. Funny, though, how it seemed like she was asking his approval for her trip… "Mai and Zuko need you, and you can help. Take Appa for as long as you need."

Something relaxed infinitesimally in her eyes, and the brown-haired Waterbender got up out of her seat to approach him. Leaning in and kissing him on the cheek (whereupon he blushed, predictable as always), Katara said, "Thanks, Aang. You… be sure to take care."

_Take care of Toph_. The unspoken words hung heavy in the air and Aang swallowed, pasting a cheerful smile on his face as he answered. "I will."

The blind Earthbender grumbled and turned her head, and in doing so Aang caught a glimpse of her face. It must have been a trick of the light… but for a moment it almost seemed like her clouded pupils followed the others as they departed from the room.

………

_I'm alive but tell me am I free  
__I've got eyes but tell me can I see  
__the sky is falling and no one knows  
__the sky is falling and no one knows…_

………

TBC.

* * *

A/N: Another Taangy plotbunny that kicked me in the head when I should've been working either on schoolwork or **Sand and Stone**... and demanded to be written. Originally intended as a one-shot, it reproduced as quickly as plotbunnies do, and now... it's no longer a one-shot.

It's a bit of in continuity from **Will You Wait?** (which is kinda funny since I started this one first) but can be read as a stand-alone. Please review and tell me what you think of it so far!


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ or any other copyrighted property that may appear in this work of fiction. Lyrics in this chapter are from "_Comatose_" by Skillet.

**Sky is Falling**

_I hate feeling like this  
__I'm so tired of trying to fight this  
__I'm asleep and all I dream of  
__Is waking to you _

_Tell me that you will listen  
__Your touch is what I'm missing  
__And the more I hide I realize  
__I'm slowly losing you_

* * *

"Aang… when you and Sokka came up with this plan, you guys didn't think it through all that well, didja?"

"Huh? What d'you mean?"

"Well for one thing, you didn't have any alternative but to sleep on the bed… since you wouldn't be able to keep watch if you slept on the floor." Toph emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, briskly toweling her hair dry. "And that's why you ended up having to borrow Sokka's old sleeping bag."

"No, actually it's because I—"

"—didn't think it through," Toph reiterated with a knowing air, removing the towel and raking a hand back through her long unbound locks. "And don't bother arguing, I can tell even without listening to your heartbeat that I'm right. You lie worse than a losing _pai sho_ player, Twinkletoes."

"HEY! I'll have you know that I was winning games of _pai sho_ before—before even Zuko's uncle Iroh was born," the tattooed Avatar muttered a bit sulkily, lying supine on top of the covers with the sleeping bag wrapped tight about him like a cocoon. "Seriously, I haven't lost a fair game in decades."

"_Tch_. This is counting the time you spent in the iceberg, right? Whaddaya do, wile the years away challenging Appa to board games?"

Aang pouted and shifted restlessly in his restrictive sleeping accoutrements. He wasn't lying about his gaming skills—he'd been pretty good at it, if he did say so himself. Monk Gyatso had been one of the best, and although he hadn't been above stooping to an occasional cheat or two, the elderly monk had taught him well.

It irked him somewhat that she was right about the rest, though: it _had_ been a while since the last time he'd needed any bed other than Appa's warm furry back or the ones provided for him in every town, village or city he visited. Frankly he could've done without the bag… but this was _Toph's_ bed, and she viewed it with the possessive attitude of a platypus-bear: _THIS IS __**MY**__ TERRITORY.__**TOUCH AND DIE**_**.**

After much persuasion on Sokka's part, she'd reluctantly ceded half of it so Aang didn't have to suffer through either sleeping on hard wooden floorboards or the table. _She_ was the one who'd insisted on the bag, much to the older Water Tribe sibling's mixed amusement and bewilderment.

"Oh c'mon, Toph… I thought you girls got over the '_guys have cooties_' stage years ago!"

"Believe me, Snoozles, that is NOT the issue here," the petite Earthbender had snapped, her eyes narrowing in annoyance. "This is insurance, to make sure I don't wake up in the morning and find that not _only_ did I not get any sleep to speak of, but that the Avatar is draped over me like a lumpy blanket."

"What? It's just _Aang_, for cryin' out loud—"

"And this is my house… _my_ rules. If you don't like it, the two of you can bug off and find some other Spirits-damned insomniac to babysit!"

_That_, if nothing else, shut Sokka up quite effectively. Personally Aang had been somewhat tongue-tied himself, although more out of mortification at the fact that no one besides himself seemed to take the complaint seriously.

_**It's like that kind of thing just isn't credible, period. It must be because I'm "just Aang," like Sokka said: the Avatar, a monk, a twenty-two-year old boy.**_

Did Toph think of him as "just Aang" as well? Even unasked, the question had the immediate effect of making him wince. Why WOULDN'T she? After all, he'd never given anyone reason to believe otherwise. Not even Katara, who he'd kissed and embraced so many times—who'd he loved for so long—ever seemed to expect or even WANT anything more intimate than that.

_**No. No more thinking about Katara now—it's **_**Toph**_** I'm spending the night with**_**.** The thought alone made his stomach clench, and with a convulsive movement he unzipped the bag and knuckled his temples briefly, willing himself to calm down. _**Come on, what am I so nervous about? It's only Toph!**_

_**…Hmm. "Just Aang" and "Only Toph" …We match.**_

"I told you guys this was a bad idea," he could hear her muttering as she rummaged through her things, opening and closing drawers apparently at random. "But _nooo_, Toph is _unstable_ and needs _help_. You know—" she whirled around, jabbing her brush in his direction with something of a menacing air. "Just because I'm having some really creepy, trippy dreams DOESN'T mean I need someone to hold my hand through the night, _**all right**_?!"

"Right, _yes_ ma'am—no handholding, completely understood!" Aang chuckled uneasily, eyeing the grooming implement with trepidation.

"Well, good… so long as we're clear." Toph's shoulders sagged a little, and she ran the brush absently through her hair a few times before vehemently chucking it back onto the nearest table and plopping down on the bed with a bounce of the mattress. "Damn it."

"What? Is something wrong?" He rose up on one elbow, curious despite himself. He'd also dressed down for the night, since Sokka's sleeping bag was designed for arctic weather and was rather uncomfortably stuffy for this time of summer. The flaps of the bag loosened as he changed position, allowing the night breeze that slipped in from the open window to cool and lightly caress his bare arms and torso.

"…Oh, nothing much. Just, how the heck am I supposed to get to sleep with YOU here?" She indicated him with a half-hearted jerk of her head. Strands of jet black hair fell in a gentle cascade at the sudden movement, clinging damply down her back. "You're almost as sound a sleeper as Snoozles… 'cept your snore was more of a whistle than a rumble, last I recall. Wonder if that's changed any."

"Ahaha… uh, well, I wouldn't know." Aang scratched his neck and tried not to think about how many years had passed since that last time they had all slept together, unchaperoned and innocent as you please. Of course, now that they were adults, the very thought of chaperones would be laughable… and yet Aang knew with a heavy heart that he was no longer quite as innocent as he used to be.

As for Toph… _well_. If she was at all concerned about the changes a decade had wrought in them both, Aang saw no sign of it. No longer was she the short and stocky girl of twelve—well, she was still a little on the short side, but no one would ever deem her '_stocky'_ now.

The Bei Fongs were tall, slim and poised; their breeding showed in every line of their elegant figures. Leave it to their most unconventional daughter to break the mold.

Dressed only in a thin shift in the style of her youth, Toph extended both arms above her head with a yawn, blissfully oblivious to her bedmate's absorbed scrutiny. She was a study in contrasts, all raven night and shadowed curves packed into a compact, sturdy body. Her pale rounded shoulders surfaced and bobbed through her sea of hair as she stretched—her back arched like a cat's, curvaceous form silhouetted by the moon. Moments later she drew up her feet and got under the sheets, her chest rising and falling in a slowing, mesmerizing rhythm as she settled into her pillow with a sleepy sigh.

Aang gulped and burrowed even further down, blushing furiously. Despite being the Avatar, a monk and everything else, he was still only twenty-two years old—and puberty, while a very, _very_ long time in coming, had hit with a vengeance. _**Yep, there's no worry that I'll fall asleep tonight…**_

To distract himself he spoke. "Toph?"

"…Yeah, Twinkletoes?"

"What are your dreams about?"

She was silent for so long that at first Aang thought she had fallen asleep. Then: "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"What—? But of course I would!"

She snorted pensively, and a bit drowsily. "_Sure_, Twinkles. Just like you and Sweetness and Sokka all believed me earlier."

Aang fidgeted awkwardly. "Well, that was different."

"No… it _wasn't_." He felt her shift and turn to him, and when he dared glance over he saw her gaze fixed upon him, eyes luminous and intense. "You know, I never used to dream in anything but vibrations and densities, if I dreamed at all. What would you say if I told you I dream in color and shapes now? That I dream of sobbing mothers, children clutching at their skirts screaming, and men cursing the Spirits, faces turned toward the skies? People lay dead in the streets, chaos and fury and frustration reign supreme, and still nothing but destruction pours forth—"

"Stop it, Toph!" Aang cut in, a little more forcefully than he'd meant to. As borderline delusional as her fantasy sounded, coming all together like that seemed to make it more and more _believable_… and that made him uneasy. Hurriedly he tried for a more comforting tone: "No matter how real it might seem, in the end it's still only a dream. Okay? No need to get all worked up about it."

She shut her mouth with something like a sullen sob, twisting onto her other side. Aang instantly regretted his words, and unzipped his bag far enough so he could reach out to her. "Toph…"

Without turning she grabbed his wrist and flung it away from her, curling closer into herself. "Don't _touch_ me."

Aang frowned and withdrew, re-zipping himself back into his bag with a show of indifference. The cold rejection hurt, but what could he do? Most likely she was just upset that he'd interrupted her, and this was her lashing out in response. "Well, then good night. And… sweet dreams."

He heard her chuckle darkly, hopelessly. "Heh. I _wish_."

………

_I hate living without you_

_Dead wrong to ever doubt you_

_But my demons lay in waiting_

_Tempting me away_

_Oh how I adore you_

_Oh how I thirst for you_

_Oh how I need you_

………

_**Come to visit, have you? I should warn you, though: you're too late.**_

_I'm afraid I don't understand your meaning._

_**You know very well what I mean. Just as Kuruk's beloved fell into my clutches, so have I now gained power over your successor's darling. So here you are.**_

_She is not yours._

_**Not yet… but she will be.**_

_Aang will never allow it. I have faith that he will be able to stop you._

_**Well what makes you so sure he can handle—**_

_…Handle what?_

_**Oh, nothing. It just occurred to me that I shouldn't tell you everything, considering your "connections". Best to have something in reserve, as a little surprise.**_

_Koh! Leave the boy alone. You have no right to torment him after the part you played in the war._

_**It is not he I torment.**_

_You have even less right to torture his companions._

_**She touched the water, Avatar. She stole life from the Spirit Realm—unbalanced the world of the living dead. There must be retribution.**_

_You are not the one to enforce that it be made._

_**Nor are you the one to interfere. Who are you to lecture me about my right to do anything? You yourself have overstepped your bounds, Roku, far beyond what any other past Avatars have done for their successors! Did Kyoshi ever aid YOU as much, even when her prodigious abilities might have prevented your death and the realization of Sozin's dreams of conquest?**_

_…No. But then we did not yet risk the annihilation of everything we had worked so hard to build._

_**And neither will you now, believe me. You said you had faith in your successor. Let HIM save the world this once, without your meddling.**_

………

_Comatose_

_I'll never wake up without an_

_overdose of you_

………

He was awakened by a punch in the gut. Choking back his gasp of pain, Aang shot upright to see Toph thrashing about next to him, hopelessly ensnarled in the sheets. "T-Toph!"

_**Monkeyfeathers! Why wasn't I more careful about falling asleep??**_ He thought, angry at his own inattentiveness as he frantically fought with the zipper and sat up. Grabbing his former _sifu_ by the arms and pulling her upright, Aang shook her desperately.

"Toph! WAKE UP!"

She jolted awake with a shuddering gasp, and (with unnerving accuracy) her eyes immediately sought his—sightless and stricken, filled with a silent and uncharacteristic terror. "T…Twinkletoes…"

"It's all right, you're safe, awake now," he soothed, running his hands comfortingly up and down her chilled arms, chafing them into some semblance of warmth. "Everything's going to be all right."

"No… no, it's not." She seized him, so suddenly that Aang was taken aback, and she hid her face in his chest. "Nothing's going to be the same again."

"Toph, what—"

"We're all going to die."

"…Eventually, yeah." Aang would've said more, but somehow he didn't think that Toph was all of a sudden having an existential crisis because of _nothing_. Plus her uneven breathing was tickling his collarbone, and the sensation of her shivering, thinly-clad body pressed up against him like this was sorta making most of his brain cells spontaneously self-combust. "But that's not—"

"Aang, please… tell me that you trust me. That you'll BELIEVE me, whatever I might say!"

"Take it easy for a moment, Toph; calm down and _breathe_." Hesitantly Aang gave into the strange compulsion to stroke her back, fingers brushing against her spine and the cool fringe of her sweet-smelling hair. "Tell me what's bothering you. What happened?"

Toph jerked upright, but instead of giving a straightforward answer she merely posed another question. "How many days will it take for Katara to get to the Fire Nation? Is she there already?"

"No… it'll be at least a couple days, traveling all out," he replied, a bit startled at the intensity with which she accompanied her inquiry. "Why do you ask?"

"She's too late, then." Toph slumped back, her eyes glossy with grief and another, less definable emotion. "…_Mai's already dead_."

………

_Breathing life_

_--_

_Waking up My eyes_

_Open up_

_--_

_**Don't leave me alone.**_

………

TBC.

* * *

A/N: And the plot thickens... or grows marginally less/more confusing, whichever you prefer. -sweatdrop- Please review and let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ or any other copyrighted property that may appear in this work of fiction. Lyrics in this chapter are from "_Disturbia_" by Rihanna.

* * *

**Sky is Falling**

_No more gas in the rig  
Can't even get it started  
Nothing heard, nothing said  
Can't even speak about it  
All my life on my head  
Don't want to think about it  
Feels like I'm going insane  
Yeah…_

* * *

"Toph… what did you do?!"

The blind Earthbender in question exhaled sharply, disguising her instinctive wince—she should've figured that Aang would go all dramatic and stuff on her. "Geez… if I'd known that'd be the kind of reaction I'd get for trying to help you out, I wouldn't have bothered."

"In what way will _killing_ yourself help me? Suicide is NOT the answer to your problems, Toph!" His panicked voice cracked at the childishly high pitch he was using—she would've thought it kinda cute (in a weird sort of way), if it hadn't been for the fact that she was royally pissed off.

"Who said anything about _suicide_?! What, did you think I slashed my knuckles because I was aiming for my wrist and missed? FOR SPIRITS' SAKE _IT WAS AN __**ACCIDENT!!**_"

"_I_—! …_oh_. Uhh…"

Thankfully, her shouting seemed to jolt Aang out of his senseless panic. When she felt he'd calmed down sufficiently to actually _listen_, Toph continued, "If I was planning on offing myself—which I am NOT—I wouldn't make some stupid half-assed attempt like that. So _relax_."

After a few beats of tense silence, broken only by the sound of her harsh breathing, Aang stopped digging his fingers into her shoulders and took a deep breath of his own. "…Um. Are you okay?"

"I just got my knuckles _slashed by a razorblade_—whatever makes you think that means I'm okay?" Toph repeated in a sardonic drawl, feeling blood spill down the back of her hand and the fingers she'd clamped around her wrist; finally dripping on the koala-wool carpet Sokka and Suki'd given her as a house-warming gift. "…Shit. _That's_ gonna leave a stain."

It was then that other, shakier fingers closed down on her arm in a hard vise and pulled her to the nearby basin, hurriedly thrusting both hands into the cold water with a shocking splash. "Here's a towel, I'm going to get the first aid kit" was all he said before he took off in a gust of wind, leaving a light spray of droplets in his wake as well as a random towel he'd flung haphazardly in her general direction (i.e., at her head).

Toph grumbled as she pulled off the towel, fully aware of the awkwardness of the situation. Not to mention how she was _definitely_ not in the mood to be fussed over… although in this case it seemed like she had little choice. If she didn't give Aang _something_ to make himself useful over, he'd be fluttering about like a mother hen—or worse, like _Katara_.

Shuddering at the thought of TWO Kataras existing in the same universe, the Earthbender plunged her injured hand as far as it would go in the shallow basin and (bending slightly to accommodate the rest of her arm) washed off all the blood she could identify—its metallic scent cloying and concentrated, pervading the air.

"'_Suicide is not the answer to your problems_,' you said." She kept her voice quiet, reflective almost, as she dumped the blood-water and refilled the basin to wash her hands afresh. "So does that mean you think I have problems?"

**…**_**You **_**better**_** not be questioning my mental stability, Twinkletoes**_**.**

"Back," said Aang, rushing back into the room and hurrying her to a chair before she had enough time to do more than soap up and rinse. Grabbing the towel from where she'd slung it over her shoulder, Aang rubbed her hands dry with enough fierce assiduousness that Toph hissed and finally batted him off.

"Why do YOU have a razor, anyway? Aren't you monks supposed to be all '_peace and harmony, knives beget violence_' kind of thing?" she asked skeptically as he applied salve and wrapped strips of clean cloth around her now barely-bleeding hand.

"I may be a monk, Toph, but I'm also an adult male; that means I have to shave."

Toph was tempted to say something cutting, like '_You're not an adult __**anything**__, Twinkles, you're just a stupid __**boy**__'_ …but then she caught herself. That wasn't the kind of thing she'd normally say to ANYONE, let alone to Aang.

_**He's never been '**_**JUST a boy**_**'—he's the AVATAR! Even if you ignore that fact, mustn't forget that he's also the last Airbender, he's **_**bald**_** as a baby bunny, and he grew up with **_**King Bumi**_**. None of which are exactly **_**common**_**, these days.**_

Plus, she'd been unpacking his things (_pawing through his stuff out of sheer boredom_) and then accidentally sliced herself on his shaving implement. So, technically, it wasn't even Aang's fault.

_Argggh_… Toph fought the urge to bang her head on the nearest solid surface. This… all because of that stupid dream! Or more accurately… _**that stupid voice.**_

………

_It's a thief in the night  
To come and grab you  
It can creep up inside you  
And consume you  
A disease of the mind  
It can control you  
It's too close for comfort_  
………

The moment she'd closed her eyes, she knew that it wasn't her usual nightmare that was waiting for her—for one thing, she felt no fear. There was no blood, no haze, no screaming or cursing… just white, fluffy cottony stuff. A _cloud_…?

She sat on a cloud (_pale, insubstantial and yet impossibly holding her weight_) looking down on the world, on the Four Nations. She'd never _seen_ them before, of course, but what else could those landmasses be? Toph knew perfectly well she wasn't the type to make up fantasy worlds, even in her dreams.

Because it _was_ a dream, she sat serenely with her feet dangling off the edge, and looked her fill. By some strange freak of vision, she thought she could even identify Kyoshi Island—there, where Sokka lived with Suki. She could make out their house, the sparse wooded area around their village and the smoke that rose from the chimneys, the slow progress of the barges as the local fishermen plied their trade.

Suki (_**that's**__ Suki??_) sat inside the house Sokka had built for her, comfortably propped up against the arm of the sofa and reading a folded sheet of paper. Toph would've bet anything that the thick black caterpillar scrawls on it were Sokka's, letting her know that he was coming home to her and their unborn child (_just beginning to show, curving her slender form outward like a spoon_). She was sure she could see him, too—a solitary, whistling traveler with a sword at his back, straw traveling hat on his head, and the road beneath his feet.

_Sokka's gonna be a father_. Toph wondered for a moment why the thought didn't hurt more, when for years she considered him her first and only crush… then she remembered it was a dream, and that dreams are funny like that.

Next she scanned the land for Katara—not difficult, seeing as she was riding a giant sky-bison to the Fire Nation—and found her almost immediately. Aang would've thought her more beautiful than ever, the way the wind whipped her long wavy hair from her face and exposed her eyes, glowing with blue fire. She seemed so full of purpose; filled with the knowledge that _she was needed_.

But what of Zuko, who awaited her at the end—the one who had asked her to come so urgently? The question begged to be asked: what about the Fire Lord?

No sooner did she finish that thought than her dream-vision instantly warped—zooming in on the Fire Nation, and into the Fire Palace. The effect of the flashing afterimages was extremely disorienting, and Toph squeezed her eyes shut.

When she opened them again, she found herself in a large bedroom, dimly illuminated and sparsely furnished for a room of its size. A woman lay in the bed, long hair loose and uncombed and matte with sweat, eyes closed in a face wasted and hollowed with illness. A man sat at her side, his hair (_dark, almost as black as hers_) drawn up tightly away from his face, his eyes glinting and hard as iron. He hadn't spoken yet, but there was something about him that made her feel like she ought to recognize him—the tautness of his posture, the tight unforgiving lines of his stony expression… the guilty grief that showed so clearly in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the silent woman, and the slightly raspy timbre of his voice was so… _Zuko_, she realized with a sudden giddy start of recognition. That made sense, and that meant the woman on the bed (_whose hand he held so tightly_) must be his girlfriend and promised fiancée. "I'm so sorry, Mai.

"The sickness came on you so fast. One day you were fine, the next you were too weak to walk, too tired to even _move_… and then your voice was gone, and you couldn't speak. You could only try to smile and nod at me, trying to tell me that you loved me and that you, you'd be _okay_… then…" Zuko bit his lower lip, which Toph noticed was already wet and covered with bloody bite marks.

"I… I wish I could've loved you _more_. Like you _deserved_ to be loved… and as much you loved me." His voice sank to a whisper, and brought with it a release of emotion—tears, silently coursing down the planes of his patrician features.

"…What am I going to tell Katara, now?" This time he seemed to be addressing himself, not the ever-silent figure on the bed beside him. "There's nothing that can be done… not anymore. Not when Mai's already dead."

* * *

"_Mai's already dead._"

How had three little words managed to change everything?

* * *

"Zuko…" Toph murmured soundlessly, standing in his room as he embraced the cooling corpse, his lips grazing her temples and leaving faint smears of red behind on her pallid skin. It hurt to breathe, just watching the older boy grieve—it felt like fragments of his pain would break off and wedge in her own breast, nicking slivers out of her heart.

She didn't know Mai well enough to mourn for her, but Zuko she remembered with clarity and much commiseration. _He's such a tragic hero… _Yet he was wrong about Katara, when he said that there was nothing left that could be done. _Once Sweetness finally arrives she'll take care of him. She's never been able to resist the scent of misery; the call of someone hurting_.

…But what would Twinkletoes have to say about _that_, if he knew?

_**Ah, but I think you and I already know. Don't we, Toph?**_

Toph jerked, startled, and turned about sharply—but there was no one there, much to her surprise. When she looked back towards the rest of the room she found that it too had vanished into nothingness, with Zuko and Mai nowhere to be seen. "_What_…?"

She was blind again. Toph swore under her breath… painfully aware that before this had all started, this _nothingness_ had been her natural state. Blindness had been her constant, and she'd depended on it—defined herself by it, even. This switching of blindness/not-blindness was both unpredictable and unsettling, and caused her to be dissatisfied with the things she'd always taken for granted.

Then again, the returning blindness usually meant that her dream was about to end. With relief Toph turned to this fact, and concentrated hard on waking up.

…Alas, no such luck. The voice remained, and went on:

_**The Avatar Spirit has always been too aggressive, too possessive for its own good. It rides the cycle of reincarnation like a child on a carnival wheel. **_

_**Pathetic, is it not? Lifetime after lifetime, preaching about destiny and sacrifice … and yet in the end, always being unable to accept that this is how it MUST be. Over ten thousand years have passed, and I have not seen one whit of true difference.**_

The mysterious voice, Toph decided, was best described as _dark_—dark and edgy, overly casual, and strangely familiar. Strange, mainly because Toph couldn't place it, and she never forgot a single voice.

_Oh, that's right…_ it was a dream. Of course things could be expected to be strange. That was the way of dreams.

Too bad the strange not-stranger kept speaking—every nuance of his (_was_ it a he?) voice sent familiar warning prickles down the back of her neck. _Danger, danger! Beware, here there be MONSTERS_.

…_**You always did see too much, for someone who was blind.**_ _**How does it feel to foresee the future?**_

"This CAN'T be the future," she whispered disbelievingly, horrified and furious at the realization that he… _it_… whoever or _whatever_ it was, reveled in her horror. "How could it be? _You're just in my head!_"

_**And this is just a dream? **_A stranger's chuckle, deep and rolling like the undertones of an approaching summer storm, echoed in the recesses of her inner ear. _**Can you truly believe that, as a blind person who can **_**see**_**?**_

_Toph?_ Aang's worried voice emerged through the mocking laughter pealing in her ears, latching onto her (_like a lifeline, or maybe a noose_). "_Toph!_"

"STOP IT!" she shrieked into the darkness, dropping all pretensions to composure. To go as far as to use Aang's voice against her! _Insufferable_—and under no circumstances would she accept it. "Stop laughing, and go away… _**GET OUT OF MY DREAM!**_"

"TOPH!" Aang's winded voice (_his hands rough on her arms, shaking her back and forth_) brought her back to reality— jolted her back into awareness. She was in her bedroom, on her bed, where Aang knelt and held her as she shuddered with post-nightmare jitters.

She had to tell him of what she'd seen. Whether she believed the voice or not, it was somehow important that Aang knew about this development as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, he didn't exactly respond as she thought he would.

"Mai can't be dead, Toph. You were just dreaming."

"But I saw—!"

"No, Toph." Aang's voice was controlled, but she could feel something like sadness, like dejection in his words. "You didn't _see_ anything. You couldn't have, especially if you were asleep."

"_Et tu_, Twinkletoes? Even you?" The frustration and hurt bubbled up again, and she bit down on her lips to prevent anything more from slipping out. She ought to have anticipated this reaction—had no excuse for not doing so.

She didn't _see_ it coming. But it seemed like no one else expected her to be able to, after all.

………

_What's wrong with me?  
Why do I feel like this?  
I'm going crazy now…_

_Your mind is in disturbia  
It's like the darkness is the light  
Disturbia  
__**Am I scaring you tonight?**_  
………

That night, after much personal wrangling with her instincts, Toph came to a decision about what to do. Choosing to forego her bath (_which she only did out of consideration for Aang—there was nothing wrong with a healthy layer of dirt_), she came out wearing her shift and an additional pair of long loose-fitting pants, and strode purposefully toward her target.

Judging by the vibrations, aforementioned target was kneeling on the floor, busy attempting to pull Sokka's sleeping bag out from where he'd stashed it under her bed. Toph stood there silently, hands on hips and head cocked to one side, observing his struggles. Finally she sighed.

"Leave it."

"What?" Toph could hear the vertebrae in Aang's neck crack at the speed with which he turned his head. "Oh, hey Toph… I didn't hear you arrive."

"Yeah, well, you were occupied fighting Smelly Cured-Hide Bag-zilla." She sighed again, weighing her options one last time, and trying to judge the advisability of her chosen course of action. "Look, I'm sorry about jumping down your throat earlier. It's just these dreams—they have me kinda on edge, y'know? So I want to apologize."

"Oh, well…" Toph could tell Aang was getting a bit flustered, for he fumbled with his response. "I-it's alright, I guess…"

"Good." She cut off his rambling and continued. "By the way, why'd you stick the bag down there? I haven't swept under my bed in years… the dust bunnies have probably taken over the floor space and colonized it by now."

The dense figure that was Aang turned and bent over again, apparently re-examining the herculean task he'd unwittingly set himself. "…Umm. I suppose I could push it out with airbending?" He sounded dubious, and Toph rolled her eyes.

"And blow dust everywhere? No thanks. How about you just leave the bag and—" _deep breath, quick, say it_— "we split? I… guess I wouldn't mind sharing if the alternative is dragging up and depositing random crap on my covers."

_**…Spirits. I can't believe I just said that. Why'd I even offer?! This is a BAD idea—worse than that time Sokka suggested skinny-dipping at Ember Island!**_

_**No, can't freak out now… casual, look casual. **_**Breathe**_**.**_

There was a stunned silence, the kind in which one could've heard a pin drop. Then, after a very long pause: "Are you… are you serious?"

"Sure. I mean, you know there are RULES, right? No touching of body parts whose names begin with the letter N, and no—"

"Nn?" Aang was starting to sound more and more strangled by the minute. Toph couldn't blame him—she still had doubts herself that she was even doing this.

"Yeah, N. Like nostril, nipple, whatever." She waved a hand about vaguely and uncomfortably, hoping he got the point. "You're a monk, the Avatar (_and Katara's your girlfriend… no, wait, don't say that_). I'm banking on the fact I can count on YOU of all people to behave."

Toph gave him a few minutes to process what she'd said. While he did so, she took the opportunity to walk over to the other side of the bed. Turning down the first layer, she slipped in with a sigh and drew the covers up to her chin.

As much as she would've liked to ignore it, Toph couldn't deny feeling a slight uneasiness as soon as the mattress dipped on his side—and for absolutely no reason. At least, she couldn't think of any possible rationales for it.

"Took you long enough." Her voice sounded nowhere as composed as she wanted it to be, so she quickly switched to stern irritation. "Look, I'm like ten seconds away from thinking myself out of this! Just so long as you don't give me a reason to rethink we oughta be fine."

"…That's what I want to know." Twinkletoes' quiet question provided excellent contrast against the hectic hammering of his heart. "Why'd you change your mind?"

_**Why? **_

"…Because you're a dead weight on top of the covers. It's annoying."

_**Because something big's going down. Because I've never fought a war inside my head before, where my enemy is a voice and a creepy laugh and knows way more about me than vice versa. **_

"Oh. But I thought earlier you said you didn't want… you were afraid I'd hog the blankets—"

_**Because I was scared, Aang. I can't afford to be.**_

"I don't KNOW why, okay? Just shut up already and go to sleep!"

_**So take these lies as truth; don't ask questions. **_

"Y-yes ma'am!"

_**Because I need someone to remind me what is real… and what isn't.**_

………

_Release me from this curse I'm in  
Trying to maintain  
But I'm struggling  
_………

Only blackness this time. As much as she should've felt relieved that tonight didn't start off with a nightmare, Toph only felt cheated. All that time and trouble, working up the courage to talk to Twinkles—wasted.

Ah, well. Might as well cut to the chase.

"Hey, whoever-you-are! I can feel you lurking around. Start talking."

Silence.

"And to think last night you were so talkative. What, cat-owl gotcha tongue?"

_**Judging by your eagerness to leave last time, I merely assumed you would prefer it if I stayed silent from now on. My apologies.**_

Toph snorted darkly. "I don't want your apologies. I just want the dreams gone and done with… and I figure you're the one who's been causing them."

_**Guilty as charged. But, are you so sure you want them gone?**_

"Do you have to ask? Oh, and while you're at it YOU can get out of my head—totally and completely."

_**Contrary to appearances, I'm here to offer you my help, Toph Bei Fong.**_

Toph felt her eyes narrow suspiciously. "Help?"

_**Yes, help. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I tell you that the dreams were only intended as warnings. They have not yet come to pass.**_

"…But you're saying they _will_? Unless I accept your help?"

_**Yes. But not for free.**_

"That's _BLACKMAIL_!"

_**No… it's the truth. Even now, Mai lies at death's door with a mysterious sickness. No mortal remedy will suffice to revive her. A word or two from you, and she'll live.**_

Toph fought down her outrage, taking a deep breath. Steady, now… if she didn't make herself a place to stand (_and soon_), she'd only find herself overwhelmed. "What makes you think I care about what happens to Mai? I've never even MET the girl, much less _like_ her enough to—!"

_**To save her life?**_

"—To compromise my own!"

_**…Is that it, then? That is as far as you are willing to go? You humans are all so selfish. **_

Toph paused, thinking. _Humans?_ "Hey, look. I'm not about to do something so BLINDLY self-sacrificing as to… to sign away MY soul for hers! Go ask someone who actually believes in that crap!"

_**Like Fire Lord Zuko?**_

_Oh shit… SPARKY! _Toph stiffened in dismayed silence. R_ight now, the angst-ridden, overly-noble sap's probably feeling guilty enough to actually go through with it, without a second thought!_

"W-wait a sec. I thought you were offering to help ME!"

_**But you don't care about Mai, you said. No one's forcing you to do anything; in the end it's your decision. **_

She'd been neatly trapped, and she gritted her teeth against that shameful awareness. "I _don't_ care about Mai, so much… but I DO want Zuko to be happy. He's had so much bitterness, he doesn't need more grief."

_**Would you take some of his burden, then? Take Mai's place?**_

"Mai?" Toph wasn't sure whether she felt more amused, annoyed or revolted. "Why would I—? It's not like I want to be Zuko's _girlfriend_!"

_**Her sickness then? You're young, active and strong, not some indolent castle flower. You might survive what she cannot.**_

"You must think I'm the dumbest idiot in the Earth Kingdom if you think I'm going to believe that for one second." Stabbing a finger accusingly in the nothingness as if to make a point, she continued, "You're fishing around for something—and while I don't know _what_ it is or _who_ you even are, it's obvious you want to get it from me. Until I find out more, I'm not making any of those kinds of deals with YOU."

_**You can't do it on your own. You're condemning her to death, and Fire Lord Zuko to a lonely life of guilt and self-torment.**_

"I'm NOT on my own. Twink—, er… _Aang_ will think of something. He's the Avatar, after all, and creeps like you don't wanna mess with him."

_**He won't believe you. Like the others, he thinks your visions delusions. Without proof, it'll appear as if it's all in your head.**_

"Of course it's all in my head… it's always been…"

Suddenly, it was like a light blinked on—and Toph snapped her fingers in triumph. "That's IT!"

_He's been trying to trick me. In sending me the dreams, he's been using my doubts to hide the fact that really… I'm already cured, because of Katara and her miracle healing water. He has no power over me, except for what I gave him._

_I could see all this time._

Smiling, Toph closed her eyes and slipped deeper into the darkness. This time, she didn't need Twinkletoes to help wake her up.

* * *

_It looks like she's beating you at your own game, Koh._

_**You think so? No, these are but the opening gambits. There is a price for everything, whether given freely or taken… and she has yet to pay mine in full.**_

………

_Throw on your break lights  
We're in the city of wonder  
Ain't gonna play nice  
Watch out, you might just go under_

_Better think twice  
Your train of thought will be altered  
So if you must falter, be wise..._  
………

TBC.

* * *

A/N: Un-betaed, and possibly very screwy. However, it's been so long since I last posted, I admit near the end there were times I just wanted to get it done. So here it is...

As usual, do read and review, please! Tell me what you think; I'd greatly appreciate your input.


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